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Vintage silver print, mounted on brown paper envelope 14,7 x 10,4 cm (5.8 x 4.1 in) Signed and dedicated "pour Charles Henri Favrod" by Burri in blue, red and green pencil on the envelope front, his name crossed out in pencil LITERATURE „El Gaucho", in: Du, no. 3, March 1959, p. 142-147; Akihiko Miyanaga/René Burri (eds.), Gauchos, New York 1994, p. 31; Hans-Michael Koetzle (ed.), René Burri. Fotografien, Berlin 2004, p. 146. Inspired by the novel Don Segundo Sombra by the Argentine writer Ricardo Güiraldes, who witnessed the life of the gauchos firsthand as a child and transformed these experiences into literature, Burri set out on his travels through Latin America to find the last "South American cowboys". About 30 years after the novel's publication, the descendants of Iberian immigrants and Indios raising cattle in the pampas had almost entirely disappeared from real life. The gaucho had become a myth - a romantically idealised hero and the epitome of the freedom-loving, strong male. After a lengthy search, having crossed Argentina, Burri managed to find the last of the gauchos, accompanying them for several weeks. Equipped with a Rolleiflex and Leica M, he observed the gauchos' work up close, documenting the breaking of wild horses, but also gazing out over the infinite expanse of the pampas. The present photograph shows a herd of cattle in close detail. It is waiting to be vaccinated near a watering hole. One animal lifts its head above the herd, facing the camera with a fearful gaze. Mounted on an envelope and dedicated to Charles-Henri Favrod, a Swiss museum director, collector and photography specialist, the photograph is also a document of rare quality and thus also of interest as a collector's item. Burri's extensive photographic essay El Gaucho has become a legend since it appeared as a special edition of the eminent Swiss cultural magazine Du in March 1959. During the same year, he was made a full member of Magnum.